Friday, August 30, 2013

Thursday, August 29, 2013

My Little Hybrids Pony.

Here is my contribution to the gallery of Madefire artists and creators celebrating the My Little Pony release. A fusion of the HASBRO property and our own The Irons:Hybrids characters.  Really pleased with this. Pencils, lineart and then colour by Yel Zamor.




Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Cardinal, Tempest

Another of the 2-year old characters done for Tempest.  I'd forgotten about this lass.  Can't remember who she is other than being a high-up member of the clergy.


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Screaming at me from the past!

The normal 24 hours in a day just isn't enough for me at the moment so I've had no time to set up the post I had planned, instead I raid my archive for a fan magazine cover I did back in 2005. Eagle Flies Again ran a UK comic horror special and I drew up a tribute to the comic Scream for its cover. I only produced pencil art for this and just bumped up the black in Photoshop for the final image. I'd change a few things about it now but I'm still reasonably pleased with the look of the central characters, well I'd redraw Dracula but if I did that I'd end up redrawing the lot so I won't go down that route. Here then is cover I drew in 2005.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Jonday - Doctor Who Origins Award.

So I happily took delivery of an Origins Award Statue this last weekend in America-land for our work on the Doctor Who Card Game.  It won Best Traditional Card Game at the Origins Awards earlier this year, and they make the statues to order.

Here's some of my work from the game:

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Convention sketch

I'm all kinds of rushed again today and my planned post will have to wait. I don't think I've posted this before so this convention sketch from a while back will have to suffice. Judge Death headshot is a favourite convention sketch for me, its one I think I can get away with while being watched by others and nobody leaves utterly disappointed :)

UPDATE: Turns out I have posted that before so here is a Dredd Head that I haven't.


Monday, August 19, 2013

Jonday - Maghaz


An orc for the latest One Ring supplement, The Heart of the Wild.

ArtRage, Photoshop.

Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their respective licensees.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

More hunters

I plain forgot to post last week, though I'll shamelessly blame confusion over holiday posts and not my own time-keeping.  More art from Hunters Hunted 2, © The Onyx Path 2013.


Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The Gunslinger - WestWorld

WestWorld is another film that I can instantly recall my first ever viewing of, not the date but where I was at least and that was in my grandfathers house in Dunston. It was being shown on TV and I reckon I must have been about 10. What a film! Two friends go on western themed adventure park holiday, populated by androids so close to human beings you wouldn't know the difference and where anything goes. Things take a turn for the worse for those visiting when the androids start to malfunction and kill the holidaymakers. Our two friends find themselves on the wrong side of the Gunslingers pistol. He's the original Terminator, ruthless and single minded, what the heck could you do to get the gunslinger give up!?!

My thoughts about Yul Brynner's portrayal of the 'Gunslinger' where not based on Schwarzenegger's Terminator (it wasn't released yet) but more to do with the relentless Doctor Who baddies the Cybermen, you couldn't stop them (well maybe if you had some gold on you) and you sure weren't going to stop the gunslinger. Even before his programming took a hit the gunslinger gave me the creeps. I didn't know the look of the character was based on Brynner's previous role in The Magnificent Seven I just knew you wouldn't mess with him. Plus of course it's Yul Brynner, the guy was cool, that trademark bald head, those piercing eyes. The guy was cool.

WestWorld was written and directed by Michael Crichton (he of Jurassic Park fame) and released 40 years ago. Apart from loving the film anyway that kind of makes it extra special for me being released on the year of my birth. A less than brilliant sequel, FutureWorld, was released three years later and there was even a very short lived and hardly seen TV series. Rumours are forever being posted about a remake but I reckon you'd be hard pressed to top the imagination and originality that the 1973 version gave. 

Monday, August 12, 2013

Jonday - Dol Guldur



A map of Dol Guldur for The Heart of the Wild.

ArtRage, Photoshop.

Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their respective licensees.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

M is for Mephisto

Oops - once again lost track of the days of the week. Inked sketch of Mephisto.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Roller Grrrls cover sketch.

Still undecided as to how best approach the final cover design for Roller Grrrls. A more dynamic image would mean cropping in closer to the figures [Jammers] but removing the skates would lose context. Lots to decide.


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

WIP Impossible Girl

Silly busy at the moment with no real time for anything so you'll have to do with a blurred iPhone pic of work in progress. Just enough time to say I'm pretty excited by the casting of the 12th Doctor, excellent choice of an excellent actor.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Jonday - Rocket Age

©2013 Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd
A rocket ship lands in the mountainous highlands of Venus, high above its verdant Jungles.

http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/rocket-age/

Sunday, August 4, 2013

'Big Generator'.


Guest Post - Norm Breyfogle!

Batman Zsasz: fan commission
1) What was your first published work?
That's a little tricky, depending on what you define as "published". Would a mimeographed high school project be considered "publishing"?

In Batman Family #13, 1977, my design for a new Robin costume was published. It was redrawn by DC's production department (probably re-inked on overlay after photographic reduction in size; my original was 18" x 24"and in full color): Click here  (Mine is the lower left one.)

Alonzo as Mad Prof: Cover for the European magazine "The Red Bulletin"
The first *definite and substantial* of my published works would be a one-shot comic book I co-plotted, wrote, and illustrated when I was 17 for our local college (Michigan Technological University) titled "Tech Team", which was a used as an advertisement of MTU to high schools across the nation. 10,000 copies were printed.

Life with Archie: cover #1
2) Who or what inspires you?
I'm inspired by the perennial philosophy, high concept science fiction, heroic and thoughtful writing, art, music, and comedy. Lots of things.

Basically, I'm inspired by reason, virtue, compassion, and beauty in all its forms. In short: transcendence. Also, good health helps!

Self portrait aged 13


Self portrait aged 43
3) What would be your dream job to illustrate?
A collection of my short stories and poetry, and my novel.

Bat Gargoyle: fan commission
Life with Archie: cover #4
4) Tell us a bit about the illustration(s) you've sent?
Archie #1 and #4 covers: My time (two-three years) drawing the Archie universe was one of the less predictable things I've done in my career. Being a fan of Archie at a young age, I never thought I'd draw the character for publication because I very early formed the desire to draw more dramatic adventure strips à la Superheroes, sword and sorcery, etc. But, when I found myself in between jobs in 2008 and was offered Archie work, I took it on as a challenge and ended up really enjoying it!

Bats vs Hulk: fan commission
All my Batman art in general: Batman was the second superhero I remember discovering at a very young age (the very first was Superman) and by the time I was nine I knew I wanted to draw the character, at least as a hobby. When I decided years later that I wanted to become a professional comics artist, Batman was the big goal for me, and I'm very grateful that I got the chance to draw him for publication so early in my career.

Here's an essay I wrote years ago about this iconic character and what he means to me:

Batman and Me As a child of ten, long before I realized the pen is mightier than the fist, I was so entranced with the Dark Knight that I seriously considered engineering a similar costume and going downtown at night looking for injustices to fight.

Instead, I put it all on paper.

As a fan I saw him as a master of reason, as the ultimate example of a sound mind in a sound body, as a perfected version of what I could become with enough training, as the man most capable of forcing justice and meaning into a resistant world, and as the coolest looking dude to ever dive off a roof.

As an artist I know him intimately as an ironic subversion of fascism, as a symbolic metaphor for authentic being-in-the-world, as my longest source yet of bread and butter, as my greatest professional old flame, as my astral alter ego, as an ancient dark hero archetype, as pure escapism, and as the Zorro we must all become to save the planet.

He exists only in our imaginations, but the imagination is the lever by which we can move the world, and he’s still the coolest looking dude who ever dove off a roof.



Tech Team:
This is the cover to the "Tech Team" comic book I wrote and illustrated when I was 17.




Scoofie Illustrations: These illustrations were painted for the Society of St. John, a monastery located in my State (Michigan), with the hopes of it becoming a children's book project featuring mythical six-inch tall monks.

Self Portraits: Both in pastel, one was drawn when I was 13 and the other when I was 43.


"Apeman" and "Shrink": These illustrations I drew as portfolio pieces in the summer after my college years, before I turned pro and while I was working as a drafter and technical illustrator.

Prime Tug of war: My time drawing the title "Prime" of Malibu's "Ultraverse" was one of the most fun jobs of my career. This illustration was used as the cover of the Wizard-like magazine "Hero" (issue #9) and also printed inside the magazine as a fold-out poster.

Metaphysique: Cover to the first issue of my creator-owned, -written, and -drawn 6-issue miniseries "Metaphysique"

Chakra: printed in each issue of Metaphysique

Zombie: illustration drawn for a book I can't remember
War in Heaven: fan commission
5) What can we expect to see from you next (what are you working on)?
At present I'm on vacation; I'm taking the entire summer off, basically for intense exercise, diet, and sunshine.  I'd let myself go for too long, and I need this.

Oops; I forgot that I do have 48 pages of layouts to do this summer for the Bermuda-located comics company "A First Salvo"!

Not sure what I'll be doing after that, work-wise. Got some irons in the fire, but I'm not aggressively looking at the moment. In other words, I'm open to considering offers!

Batman vs Everyone: fan commission
Cover to the prestige format book "Holy Terror"
"Back to the Batman Beyond Future"
(drawn for Mexico's La Mole comic con's convention book)
Rogue Prime: fan commission depicting one of the
variations of Prime's body/look
6) If you hadn't become an artist what do you think you'd have ended up doing?
As young teen I thought I was going to be an astronomer or cosmologist or some other kind of scientist, so maybe that. But more likely, I'd have become a philosophical and science fiction writer.

Drawn for a "Club Batman" exhibit in Spain
Cover to the prestige format book "Batman: the Abduction"
Cover to "Batman: Dreamland" (sequel to "Batman: the Abduction")
7) Where can we see more of your work (web links)?
I'm on Facebook, where I've posted a good potpourri of my art (and some of my poetry and other writings, in my Facebook "Notes").

My website is: normbreyfogle.com

My portfolio page on my agent's (Debut Art) website: http://www.debutart.com/illustration/norm-breyfogle#/illustration

One can also always Google my name and find a lot of stuff, too.

Crying over Robin: fan commission

Cover to Batman: Birth of a Demon #1
Urban Nightmare
Cosmic Egg
Interrupted Sacrifice
Politics